Networks of Resilience in and beyond Ukraine
New Developments in Public Communication offer Lessons on Resilience
I have just finished an online discussion at Mariupol State University. It was an American-Ukrainian panel discussion on the development of public studies [public communication in the US] in Ukrainian higher educational institutions (HEIs). In addition to myself, it involved faculty from the Cambridge Judge Business School, Mariupol State University, the MIT-Ukraine Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Latvia, a Ukrainian Fulbright student at MIT, and many more, and involved the US Embassy in Ukraine. Even though I have been studying Ukraine since Russia’s 24 February 2022 full scale invasion, I have only begun to realise the unbelievable degree of resilience of the nation and its universities over these last years.
Take the dramatic example of Mariupol. Before the invasion, it was a charming and vibrant city of over 500,000 people and home to major iron and steel factories in southeastern Ukraine. By 2 March 2022, soon after the full-scale invasion, Russian forces began a siege of Mariupol to seize control by mid-April, and by mid-May, the last Ukrainian forces at the Azovstal steel plant began surrendering. The city ‘suffered some of the worst destruction in war-scarred Ukraine’.[1]
Nevertheless, here in mid-July with Russian forces still trying to advance across multiple fronts, faculty of Mariupol State University (MSU) have organised a one-day forum. Set in the Meeting Hall of the Academic Council at MSU and reaching out on a Zoom platform to colleagues across the world, their focus was on how to build a strong programme in public communication at the University. Students, faculty, and visiting experts were all involved. It may seem like a distant analogy to a war, but MSU seems to have adapted to the Russian invasion much like the world adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic, at least in the ways they continue networking online to keep doing research, teaching, and learning.
Today’s experience reminded me of how I have seen this phenomenal resilience in Ukraine exhibited in many other ways over the last two years. I am collaborating with colleagues from Ukraine on what I call the Ukraine Case Studies project. Some are living in Kyiv, others in Germany, Ireland, and other parts of the world but they are still engaging productively in research. But also consider how prominent Ukraine has remained in sports and the arts.
I have been studying the ways in which the invasion has been a game changer in the fields of communication and information studies. Analogous to the way radio broadcasting was used in the second world war to sow propaganda, an assemblage of old and new media are being used to propagate Putin’s narratives to justify his actions. Concerns over propaganda created the field of media and communication studies in the USA. Today, with new media, propaganda is returning, such as in the guise of Russian information operations, and raising new concerns over information warfare. I am beginning to call it a war on information, as well as a war on lives. It is not simply using information to support war by other means. There is an assault on information itself to undermine beliefs and raise doubts. Thus, a war on information.
But despite this kinetic war and the war on information, a Ukrainian academic diaspora is overcoming all odds in reinforcing and extending the missions of Ukrainian academics and universities. There is even a Ukrainian Science Diaspora.[2] This seems to be one part a virtual network of resilience, but also a statement to the flexibility, adaptability and perseverance of the nation.
Apologies for my simple reflections on today’s meeting, but I think we need to understand the resilience of academia and other institutions of Ukraine in these horrific times. There must be major lessons to learn. But I do believe the project at Mariupol is right on target. We need strong programmes on public communication in Ukraine and worldwide. The war on information has not stopped at the borders of Ukraine.
My thanks to Dr Svitlana Bezchotnikova, Professor of Social Communications at Mariupol State University, the Director of TV and Radio Company “EUROSTUDIO” (2011-2022, Mariupol), and member of the Board of the National Union of Ukrainian Journalists, for inviting me. Now I have a new project in mind!
I'd like to see how the prosecution of the war has been affected by teleworking. For example, distributed networks allow the formation of ad hoc, on-ground reconnaissance teams; clearly that has already happened and continues. But is there some overall organizing principle for taking advantage of the opportunities?